Mohorosi Makhurane, Davison Zimwara, and Blessing Ngarakana
Energy Monitoring and Targeting, Energy Management, Regression analysis
Energy usage management in the manufacturing industry is a challenge that affects environment, profitability and efficiency. The main problem is failure to account for real-time utilisation resulting in post-usage intervention which does not aid in recovering from the effects of abused energy. In Zimbabwe, this situation has compounded towards a highly frequent load-shedding system that has reduced efficiency in most manufacturing companies. This paper looks at development of an energy monitoring and targeting system that uses an hourly feedback mechanism to monitor energy usage. The result is a system that triggers a signal when the trend in energy usage is surpassing the set target. In effect, the system calculates the targeted energy for unit production using regression analysis and uses an average hourly utilisation against the throughput to raise a control signal if the utilisation exceeds the target. This concept recognises the assertion that energy that is not aligned to productivity is susceptible to over-utilisation. It is expected that, the monitoring and targeting system will reduce energy utilisation thereby benefiting the environment.
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